146103-the-classic-blunder-of-mmo-design
Content ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- How often have I said these words in some form or another? The lack of innovation and of iteration and progress in the MMO genre is disheartening. Why copy older, weaker games when you could be improving on them? WoW both raised up and killed the MMO genre, and I don't think we'll see another massive MMO succeed because Blizzard simply set the bar too high due to perfect circumstances that CAN NOT be re-created. And every time a new MMO tries to re-create it, it fails and makes the investment of big money into an MMO look like a worse and worse prospect. I seriously doubt any game designer is reading this. But if they are: PLEASE PLEASE stop carbon copying older games. Be inspired by them! Take what they've done and IMPROVE it! Stand on the backs of giants and see farther, don't blind yourself by standing in their shadow and making the same mistakes. Edited November 3, 2015 by Elite Seraph | |} ---- ---- Except from a design philosophy standpoint, it's actually not. You just look at what already exists in the genre and ask yourself: "How can we make that just a little bit better or more enjoyable?" You don't just copy/paste stuff just because that's how it's always been. Because when you do that, your product fails because people have already been there and done that. Look at what GW2 did with all it's underlying mechanics. They took everything that's annoying and bullshit about MMOs and streamlined it. Everything is worth experience. You don't fight over gathering nodes with other players. You don't have to play stupid bag management games because so much is automated and put into it's own gathering storage. Almost everything is account wide. These are the types of steps forward that games should be making instead of steps backwards to copying what WoW does. Too many game companies try to re-create WoW's success, but don't actually understand why it's successful. Instead of innovating and making a good product, they make garbage. | |} ---- I can't relate at all. Even if I happen to play only 4 hours in one month, it's still cheaper than watching a movie in a cinema. Also there are months, where I play a lot more than 4 hours and thus have a low priced hobby. But comparing prices on a monthly base is bad anyway. You should compare your overall investment. It makes no difference, if you pay overall 540 Euros in 3 years per 15 Euro/month subscription or 540 Euros in 3 years for various mounts, colors, decors and so on. In both cases you spent the same amount of money and had the same online time. The difference is, that in a subscription based model you had the chance to get every mount, color, decor and so on, while in the f2p model you got just a fraction of it. The reason is simple: To compensate those players who pay less or nothing, they have to milk other players and thus having an opportunity to spent even more money. "We don't like that." What I don't like is other players paying for me playing. And that's what happens for every player who pays less than a subscription. I also don't like to pay the same (or even more) as a subscription and still won't be able to get every mount, color, decor and so on. I prefer paying for myself and therefore get the opportunity to play the whole game (as far as my time and skill can get me). The big irony of f2p is, that most often those 9-hours-a-day-powergamer get more out of a game than those 50-euro-a-month-paygamer with only 4 hours a week to play. And still the second group is the one paying. Sorry, but there are already too few player who actively do housing in addition to it being already expensive af. By making it cost more money (there are already decors, skies and FABkits which costs money) you would just kill that feature. | |} ---- Great post, I agree with all your points except the one in the quote. I've leveled past 15 many moons ago and sandbox games just don't click with me. I find them to be utterly boring and generally stop playing them after a week or two. If you asked me I'd rather have my themepark, with a dash of sandbox to dabble in like, say, housing. I'll agree with the tagline though, but to take the twisted world in my head and put it into other people's do a bit of rp all I need is an audience of likeminded people, I can pull that off just fine in a themepark MMO. | |} ---- ---- And that is very true of the wife and I, for example. We have years of play-time invested into WoW. Although we're enjoying Wildstar, we have absolutely zero interest in ever participating in endgame progression in this game. Wildstar is something for us to dabble in, just like SWTOR was. Why? Because we've already got all that progression in WoW, and will probably do more of it when the Legion expansion launches. At this point, after all these years, we're just not interested in starting over from scratch in another MMO's raiding endgame. If WoW shutdown tomorrow, we'd still never endgame raid in another MMO again. Been there and done that. Wildstar didn't grab us at launch because, quite simply, Carbine wanted to create a raid-centric endgame MMO. Well, like I said, we already have one that we've been invested in. But that is also one reason GW2 has had us playing alongside WoW, and spending money in their gem store. GW2 didn't focus itself on raiding, and we liked some of the different design directions they went with the game as opposed to WoW. We're two customers where the "don't copy WoW" definitely applies. We already play WoW, and have years invested in it. We don't need "another WoW" to play. (Edit: I should mention that GW2 lost the wife and I with Heart of Thorns, but the reasons are another topic. Just wanted to note that although what I mentioned for GW2 was true pre-expansion, the game lost us post expansion.) Edited November 4, 2015 by Vanguardian | |} ---- ---- I both agree and disagree, and I think some clarification might be needed here. I think that when he says 'Noob vs Max' he's talking about the difference in gameplay. For a lot of MMOs the game changes drastically the moment you hit level cap, often unlocking core gameplay and mechanics that aren't available before that point. This often means that no matter how good you are personally, if you don't have a level-capped character you're a scrub. And it doesn't need to be a level. It could be a key skill or piece of equipment that drastically alters the effectiveness of a character. That happened a LOT in WoW hardcore raiding. So this is where I disagree about EVE. There are a few breakpoints on skills to perform certain specialized roles, such as certain ships needing months of prerequisite skills before you can even step into the cockpit, much less properly outfit it. But for the most part you can be doing gate camps as part of a fleet in the first week, and be flying a battleship or battlecruiser effectively by the end of your first month of you have someone to show you the ropes. There are no points in EVE where the game mechanics stop you from going out and doing something. The only limits are if you know how to do it, if you can afford to do it, and if anyone will stop you. That's a hell of a lot different from a game which only let's you win once a week, but also randomly doesn't give you anything for winning, and requires you to be "Max level" before you can even try. Edited November 4, 2015 by Elite Seraph | |} ---- ---- As someone who often holds up GW2 as a model for other games to follow, I'd be interested in hearing why Heart of Thorns lost you. I haven't bought it yet because I've been playing WS, so I have had a chance to see it first hand. | |} ---- ---- ---- Because more content is bad. Do you not roll alts? All sides have to be served. I chain run alts myself. Often never reaching max cap. I think I've seen the same quests easily 50 times...On both sides. It's kinda BS in a way if you ponder the fact "One must rush the content to play higher content" because they want to enjoy more content...and thus need rush it to see more content to.... #treadmill | |} ---- ---- And yet studio after studio has stated that their metrics show that a majority of the players playing their MMO do not raid. Or if they do, it's something simple like using the LFR in WoW or Story Mode Operations in SWTOR. Just a way to see the content, and not really a gear chase, since the gear is subpar to any Heroic or Mythic gear (WoW) or Nightmare gear in SWTOR (just for two quick examples). So, I'm not convinced your proposed model has long term financial viability. I can tell you right now, the wife and I would be two players not touching the game. We do it in WoW by this point just because. We actually wouldn't mind if studios got the hell away from the raid-centric model. Again, I'll point to GW2, as well as to where BioWare is taking SWTOR as of their KoTFE expansion that launched on October 27th. Edited November 4, 2015 by Vanguardian | |} ---- And yet City of Heroes actually launched 100% casual friendly 7 months before WoW in 2004. The difference is, super-heroes are, and always will be, a niche genre in both electronic and table-top gaming (despite being mainstream in film and television). WoW opened the flood gates, yes, but I think the beginning of the casual trend was beginning with or without WoW. It's just that WoW made it a focus in everyone's eyes. I played EQ1, SWG, and others before WoW. I was already 26 when I started playing EQ1 in 1999. If not for games like CoH and WoW coming along, and the genre changing from the BS time-sink that it had started out as, I would have left the genre by 2003. There was no more time for that. I don't think WoW killed a genre. I think it kept it alive a lot longer than it would have remained, had the old-school designs remained. People were getting older, and life busier, and the time for those types of MMOs was already dwindling. Even the "WoW Kiddies" are all in their 20's now, and usually with college, jobs, or a kid or two. My son was on the lower age end, he started playing WoW at 12. He's 22 now with a full-time management job, fiancee, and college. Even he doesn't raid anymore outside of a little LFR. Edited November 4, 2015 by Vanguardian | |} ---- While this is true, I also see a separate value in doing as Carbine did for the recent holiday content - making new content in the game accessible to a wide swath of players, nearly regardless character level. I will be a VERY long time before I have any character at 50 at 16 and one at 14 right now, so a total of 30, but that is NOT the same thing, and I appreciate having content access beyond "look at the atmospheric stuff in the city and here's a single quest for low levels" as some other MMOs do with new content. Also... please say there really is a level 25 quest where I run over squid zombies with a unicycle. Not necessarily. Making content inclusive also hits those players who DO have characters, and who DO play, but who do not yet have characters playing "top end-game." Making new content of interest to top-level character players does not necessarily equate to making new content exclusively for farthest-tier raiders. Making not-exclusive-to-top-end-raiders content isn't a waste, if it gains and maintains interest for a broad base of players especially, in this f2p environment, if it ties into things which are also available in the cash store, without seeming to make the cash store mandatory - so having some seasonal Housing Decor items on a given theme be available through in-game, and a couple on the same theme through cash, for example; but not say by having the flair for a given hoverboard be in-game items, but the necessary hoverboard itself be cash-only... the other way 'round would be better. And as others have pointed out, there are plenty of those players whose characters reach maximum level, but who do not aim for "end game" to mean "top tier raiding." Content which is both not "end game means competitive raiding" and is "of interest to top level characters" seems to be the key. Oh, and per an earlier comment in this thread, "if immersion is NOT important to me, why wouldn't I go play chess, or a FPS, or some other directly competitive game?" The setting, immersion in the setting, is what makes an MMORPG viable, makes it distinct from other MMORPGs. The games are not selling on "here are the minor mechanics differences between us and each other MMORPG out there," they are selling on "you and many other players, playing in this cool setting." Yes, even selling to competitive raiders based on the setting. And that does mean 'immersion.' Edited November 4, 2015 by Gnapoleon | |} ---- Right, and this goes to the point I was trying to make about true MMO endgame and player longevety really being rooted in social and community interaction- your friends in EVE can definately help you get places faster...and without friends vast swaths of the game will be pretty much inaccessable to you, regardless of skill points. (I mean, you can go places...but you will probably get killed unless you are in a cloaky scout) | |} ---- Trust me when I say there is A LOT you can do as a solo pilot. Some of it might take longer to do by yourself, but you can get it done. Take a look at all the wormhole solo pilots, for example. But you're right that there are things you can't do on your own, but you know what? It's OK to have group content AND solo content, and stuff in-between. The mistake linear MMOs like WIldstar make is having a bait and switch mentality between leveling content and end game. Too many MMOs treat leveling up as solo, and once you reach level cap it's nothing but group-only content. Or worse....solo content gets relegated to sideshow casual garbage which doesn't actually do anything meaningful for your character. This is why EVE is such a good example of how to do it right. 1) Their game world is MASSIVE! Unbelievably so. It's literally filled with things to do of ALL types of gameplay, solo, small group, large group, whatever. 2) They have only a single game world, so there's no splitting of the playerbase. This also promotes community. 3) They do not artificially limit the activities you can do. Like I said before the only limit is if you know how, if you can afford it, and if anyone will stop you. 4) There is no bait and switch between gameplay based on what 'level' you are because there's no 'levels' and there's no endgame. Unlike linear MMOs the gameplay is always the same. The main flaw I see with EVE is that it's PVP system is horrendous. It works, but the idea that it's PVP all the time, any time, anywhere, and for any reason with no warning, and often with some form of cheeze involving abuse of game mechanics...yeah. That's not so hot, IMO. The other problem is that there is literally NO story going on. The players make the 'story', or whatever. This, combined with CCP's stance on letting players wreck each other by whatever means necessary, (including the worst kinds of scamming, lying, fraud, or exploit) makes the game one of the most unpleasant experiences to actually play unless you are inherently a troll by nature and enjoy that type of thing. Anyway, that's a bit of a ramble. What I really wish someone would do is to make an MMO with the size and scope of EVE's gameworld, the skill system of EVE, the story elements of SWTOR, the underlying game mechanics and streamlining of GW2, and the combat of Wildstar/TERA/GW2. Linear progress is a dead end, IMHO. It requires the devs to play a game that they CAN NOT win, by continuously churning out content that is consumed in 1/100th of the time it takes to create. Unfortunately it might be that we NEVER see another large-scale MMO. Blizzard scrapped Titan in favor of smaller games like Hearthstone, HotS, and Overwatch. EQ:Next fell prey to horrible business decisions and will probably never get finished. And the eastern asian MMOs keep churning out the same grind-focused garbage over and over again. | |} ---- ----